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29 minutes ago, jgardnerucf said:

Thomas' on Gore is great. Sure beats sassy cashiers at Ace.

I like Thomas. Although for hardware we went to Landis Stone at Western Way and Panning Lumber in Pine  Hills mostly since I grew up out west. (I also went to elementary school with Buddy Stone, Landis’ boy.)

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9 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

Princeton and Lake Silver for elementary, then Meadowbrook and Evans (graduated from Orange Park, though, my dad got transferred just before my senior year).

As I recall, back in the 80's, Lake Silver had a special wing dedicated to kids with severe physical handicaps . Behind the building that section was in, was a small, covered play area specially designed for them by some world renowned architect. I was working as a sub back then and used to get assignments there every so often. 

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29 minutes ago, JFW657 said:

As I recall, back in the 80's, Lake Silver had a special wing dedicated to kids with severe physical handicaps . Behind the building that section was in, was a small, covered play area specially designed for them by some world renowned architect. I was working as a sub back then and used to get assignments there every so often. 

One of the oddities of OCPS thinking back in the ‘50’s: Lake Silver (an elementary school) was built with a full auditorium; Evans (which opened as a jr/sr high) didn’t get one. I’ve always wondered who thought that made sense. 

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2 hours ago, JFW657 said:

As I recall, back in the 80's, Lake Silver had a special wing dedicated to kids with severe physical handicaps . Behind the building that section was in, was a small, covered play area specially designed for them by some world renowned architect. I was working as a sub back then and used to get assignments there every so often. 

Aww, yes the special needs wing was still there when I attended Lake Silver in the 90's. Compared to the rest of the school, walking into the wing for the first time felt like walking into a different world (marked difference), because many of us had never been in there before. Depending on our grades/performance,  a few students were given the opportunity to work with the special needs kids. Definitely a learning experience at that age.

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7 minutes ago, nite owℓ said:

Aww, yes the special needs wing was still there when I attended Lake Silver in the 90's. Compared to the rest of the school, walking into the wing for the first time felt like walking into a different world (marked difference), because many of us had never been in there before. Depending on our grades/performance,  a few students were given the opportunity to work with the special needs kids. Definitely a learning experience at that age.

Forest Park around the corner on Silver Star used to be a special needs school. Did that close when they built the new wing at Lake Silver?

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53 minutes ago, nite owℓ said:

Aww, yes the special needs wing was still there when I attended Lake Silver in the 90's. Compared to the rest of the school, walking into the wing for the first time felt like walking into a different world (marked difference), because many of us had never been in there before. Depending on our grades/performance,  a few students were given the opportunity to work with the special needs kids. Definitely a learning experience at that age.

They were the sweetest kids you'll ever meet anywhere.

Was Mr. Beach (Beech?) still there when you were?

He really loved those kids.

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48 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

Forest Park around the corner on Silver Star used to be a special needs school. Did that close when they built the new wing at Lake Silver?

IDK.... I was probably around 8 years old when we moved to Orlando at the time. I went to 3 different elementary schools and 2 different middle schools.

6 minutes ago, JFW657 said:

They were the sweetest kids you'll ever meet anywhere.

Was Mr. Beach (Beech?) still there when you were?

That name seems familiar. I only remember a few teachers from Lake Silver: Mrs Bolin?, Mrs Matthews (we all had a crush on her - even though I play for the other team lol) Mrs Jackson, Mrs Barton? And a PE teacher Holvarter or something. I think Mrs Bolin was the one who led me to "intern" with the special needs kids - it was a bit weird/awkward initially and I just remember telling everyone how much nicer their facilities were than ours was lol.

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20 minutes ago, nite owℓ said:

IDK.... I was probably around 8 years old when we moved to Orlando at the time. I went to 3 different elementary schools and 2 different middle schools.

That name seems familiar. I only remember a few teachers from Lake Silver: Mrs Bolin?, Mrs Matthews (we all had a crush on her - even though I play for the other team lol) Mrs Jackson, Mrs Barton? And a PE teacher Holvarter or something. I think Mrs Bolin was the one who led me to "intern" with the special needs kids - it was a bit weird/awkward initially and I just remember telling everyone how much nicer their facilities were than ours was lol.

Oh, wow, I think Mrs. Bolin was there in the Dark Ages when I was (I think my last year there was ‘68-‘69).

As for changing schools, OCPS made my tiny self crazy. Before starting first grade, I went that spring to meet my first grade teacher at Concord Park. That summer, they decided to tear the school down and we got shipped to Princeton in the fall. Two years later, they moved us again to Lake Silver. And that was all before the 1970 desegregation order that changed everything around.

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2 hours ago, nite owℓ said:

IDK.... I was probably around 8 years old when we moved to Orlando at the time. I went to 3 different elementary schools and 2 different middle schools.

That name seems familiar. I only remember a few teachers from Lake Silver: Mrs Bolin?, Mrs Matthews (we all had a crush on her - even though I play for the other team lol) Mrs Jackson, Mrs Barton? And a PE teacher Holvarter or something. I think Mrs Bolin was the one who led me to "intern" with the special needs kids - it was a bit weird/awkward initially and I just remember telling everyone how much nicer their facilities were than ours was lol.

Well of course that was because it was added on to the old original school, and was a lot newer and more modern.

I think I subbed there once for a regular classroom teacher, but that was unusual because outside of that Silver Lake special ed class, and occasionally as a PE assistant at Hillcrest Elementary over off of Mills, I never took elementary school assignments. I did once at Dommerich back when I first started. A fifth grade class. Big mistake. I got home that afternoon and literally passed out.

:tw_astonished:

After I woke up and recovered a bit, I told myself no more elementary schools!!!! 

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3 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

Oh, wow, I think Mrs. Bolin was there in the Dark Ages when I was (I think my last year there was ‘68-‘69).

As for changing schools, OCPS made my tiny self crazy. Before starting first grade, I went that spring to meet my first grade teacher at Concord Park. That summer, they decided to tear the school down and we got shipped to Princeton in the fall. Two years later, they moved us again to Lake Silver. And that was all before the 1970 desegregation order that changed everything around.

She was a sweet older lady by the time I came along - she took an interest in me and I'm grateful for it. I think her husband owned a citrus grove and she gifted the entire class orange trees at the end of the year. I planted the tree in the back yard of a bungalow in CP that we used to rent back then. I wonder if my tree is still alive or if it fell victim to the citrus disease...

Desegregation & busing... those aren't typically things that I mentally associate with Orlando. So much has changed in such little time. Still jarring to know that Jim Crow, etc really wasn't that long ago - although some people tend to have selective memory. I read an article about a home in Thornton Park where the original deed specifically mentioned that it should never be sold to a black or hispanic person lol.

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Orlando was just a sleepy Southern town with all those problems. That began to change as Martin came to town and then Disney - their leaders insisted things come into the 20th century. We didn’t have the level of resistance of Birmingham or St. Augustine and most of the downtown leaders realized, like Atlanta did, that progress depended on diversity (Sentinel publisher Martin Andersen being a notable exception). Still, the desegregation order set white flight in motion and permanently changed the future of the west side of town.

It also changed how many looked at public education (a problem exacerbated ever since by some politicians). When I was a kid, I went to school with the wealthy kids - just about everyone went to public schools except for the folks at the Catholic schools. I know I, as a kid from a working class family, benefited mightily from being in class with kids from better backgrounds than my own (conversely, I also learned a lot from kids whose backgrounds were more challenged). Today, the most prosperous families in town reflexively send their kids to private schools and are less willing to finance quality public educations for everyone. It makes being upwardly mobile a lot more challenging. It also makes those at the top have a lot less empathy for those with less than they have because they haven’t ever gotten to know those different from themselves as friends. It’s one important reason inequality is accelerating these days.

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For more on the history of the Klan in Orange County in the 1950’s (Martin arrived in 1957):

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1999-05-09-9905070451-story,amp.html

From the Sentinel 

The story notes the Klan was active well into the 1950’s with groups in Apopka, Orlando and Winter Garden. OC Sheriff Dave Starr served in that job until 1971 and was noted by the FBI as a Klansman. 

Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall had an even more sordid record on dealing with blacks there.

Also, one of the worst slaughters of black citizens in the country took place in Ocoee in 1925. That city would not see a black resident again until the 1970’s.

Today, Orange County, thanks to the coming of Martin, Disney, the transformation of the culture from rural to urban, significant demographic changes and the determination of leaders from all parts of the community to move forward, is a much different place. It’s not perfect but in my lifetime we’ve made much progress.

There are also stories of progress among the gay community and the Hispanic community that came later. We’ll look at those in the future.

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Fast forward to the early ‘60’s and the local NAACP coordinated sit-ins at places like Woolworth’s and McCrory’s (whose important history in the city is often ignored hereabouts) with OPD and city officials to minimize the violence that occurred in other Southern cities.

In this case, however, the teenagers went rogue and dropped in to the drug stores after school without telling anyone. That caused some challenges but violence was still avoided.

Side note: the story gets one thing wrong. The prison farm on Colonial Drive belonged to Orlando, not OC (it’s why the city was able to do a land swap with the Fair in order to build the O-rena). Until Reubin Askew became governor, Florida still had city courts and city jails. It also had justices of the peace who were notorious for corruption. The “streamlining” of the courts served as a coda to the bad old days of Jim Crow.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/os-black-teens-civil-rights-story.html?outputType=amp

From the Sentinel 

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On 3/29/2020 at 1:13 PM, spenser1058 said:

Fast forward to the early ‘60’s and the local NAACP coordinated sit-ins at places like Woolworth’s and McCrory’s (whose important history in the city is often ignored hereabouts) with OPD and city officials to minimize the violence that occurred in other Southern cities.

In this case, however, the teenagers went rogue and dropped in to the drug stores after school without telling anyone. That caused some challenges but violence was still avoided.

Side note: the story gets one thing wrong. The prison farm on Colonial Drive belonged to Orlando, not OC (it’s why the city was able to do a land swap with the Fair in order to build the O-rena). Until Reubin Askew became governor, Florida still had city courts and city jails. It also had justices of the peace who were notorious for corruption. The “streamlining” of the courts served as a coda to the bad old days of Jim Crow.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/os-black-teens-civil-rights-story.html?outputType=amp

From the Sentinel 

This is a great Article. Super interesting. Appreciate all you history sharing. You're an archive!

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This is my hometown and it always drove me crazy when people said there was no history here, as if the place was empty before they moved here.

So, I started digging around and found out we have an amazing past. A lot of it also has to do with where the keepers of American culture and history are.

Boston, with all its colleges, was a major center of textbook publishing. So, based on what they knew, they just assumed Plymouth Rock was the first Thanksgiving and wrote it as the way it was. In fact, the first European settlers to have a thanksgiving feast were the Spanish in Florida, 50+ years before the Pilgrims. (Thanksgiving wasn’t even an official holiday until Lincoln.)

Hollywood was out west and so they thought all the cowboy and indian battles were in that part of the country. In fact, the nation’s longest continuous  battles with the Native Americans were the Seminole Indian Wars right here. 

Phil Donahue once observed, “News is what New York says is news”.  A truer statement has never been made.

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History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books—books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon? '”

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13 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

This is my hometown and it always drove me crazy when people said there was no history here, as if the place was empty before they moved here.

So, I started digging around and found out we have an amazing past. A lot of it also has to do with where the keepers of American culture and history are.

Boston, with all its colleges, was a major center of textbook publishing. So, based on what they knew, they just assumed Plymouth Rock was the first Thanksgiving and wrote it as the way it was. In fact, the first European settlers to have a thanksgiving feast were the Spanish in Florida, 50+ years before the Pilgrims. (Thanksgiving wasn’t even an official holiday until Lincoln.)

Hollywood was out west and so they thought all the cowboy and indian battles were in that part of the country. In fact, the nation’s longest continuous  battles with the Native Americans were the Seminole Indian Wars right here. 

Phil Donahue once observed, “News is what New York says is news”.  A truer statement has never been made.

To take this one step further, the Mayflower did not actually first land in Plymouth. It landed in Provincetown, MA.

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A similar thing happened with Ponce de Leon. Most folks don’t know he didn’t land in St. Augustine; in fact, it was probably in Brevard County.

@JFW657 was there and invited Juan (they were quickly on a first name basis) to his house and showed him the Fountain of Youth that was in his bathtub...

Edited by spenser1058
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33 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

A similar thing happened with Ponce de Leon. Most folks don’t know he didn’t land in St. Augustine; in fact, it was probably in Brevard County.

@JFW657 was there and invited Juan (they were quickly on a first name basis) to his house and showed him the Fountain of Youth that was in his bathtub...

Actually, we had a backyard swimming pool....

youtube--k2EU-Lm_v7g--default--1280.jpg

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